


Cut and Run

by esotaria (hermitcave)



Category: Tangled (2010)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-19
Updated: 2011-11-19
Packaged: 2017-10-26 07:04:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/280149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hermitcave/pseuds/esotaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He learned how to cut and run at the age of 15.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cut and Run

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a Tangled fic war with my friend Dove. Her prompt: How Flynn left the orphanage.

He learned how to cut and run at the age of 15.

Life at the orphanage wasn't bad. The caretakers were decent folk, made sure all the kids got enough to eat, had clothes without holes, and none of the bigger kids beat up none of the littler kids too badly. If education fell by the wayside, well, how many of the kids would really need it? Most of the kids would grow up to go work on the farms and a few of the girls would stay on to help at the orphanage. If anyone wanted to do something more with their lives, they found their own ways to do it.

Eugene wanted to be one of those people, someone like Flynn Rider. One of the older kids had apprenticed himself to a printer, and every Sunday he'd come back to the orphanage and read to the kids. Every Sunday the kids asked for the same story: The Tales of Flynn Rider. Flynn Rider had the life they all wanted -- the freedom to do whatever he wanted and to go wherever he wanted. Everybody wanted to be Flynn Rider.

But nobody wanted to be Flynn Rider as much as Eugene did. From the moment he was grown enough to hold a needle without poking himself, he was sewing Flynn Rider costumes, constructing fake swords for fake battles with imaginary treacherous villains (sometimes played by the other kids, often times not, for he refused to share the role of Flynn). He bullied the printer's apprentice into donating a copy of the book to the orphanage, which quickly became his copy, and with that he taught himself to read. Long after the other kids had set aside their childish play for apprenticeships, Eugene had continued his fake sword play. When the caretakers tried to convince him to apprentice himself to someone, he told them he was "training." They didn't appreciate it.

Get a job, Eugene, they said. Or help out more with with the younger kids. And no, having them play along with his Flynn Rider scenarios didn't count. Eventually, he got sick of their pressure and one evening, after dinner, he just...left. Climbed out the window before the other boys had come into the room, feeling more like Flynn Rider than he ever had before.


End file.
